PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS FOR SCHIZOPHRENIA

WHAT ARE THE TWO PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS FOR SCHIZOPHRENIA?

- Family dysfunction
- Cognitive explanations

WHAT ARE THREE EXAMPLES OF FAMILY DYSFUNCTION THAT IS ASSOCIATED WITH THE EXPLANATION OF SCHIZOPHRENIA?

- Expressed emotion
- Schizophrenogenic mothers
- Double-bind theory

WHAT IS EXPRESSED EMOTION?

The general level of criticism, disapproval, and hostility expressed in a family.

HOW DOES EXPRESSED EMOTION IMPACT SCHIZOPHRENICS?

High levels of expressed emotion can cause distress and may be linked with positive symptoms such as delusions

WHAT DID LINSZEN ET AL. FIND?

Schizophrenics are 4x more likely to relapse if they return to a family with high levels of expressed emotion

WHAT DOES LINSZEN'S RESEARCH SHOW ABOUT SCHIZOPHRENICS?

Schizophrenics have a lower level of tolerance when it comes to intense emotional situations

WHAT IS A STRENGTH OF EXPRESSED EMOTION AS A THEORY FOR THE EXPLANATION OF SCHIZOPHRENIA? (3)

- Real life application
- Family therapy can help to reduce verbal criticism and hostility towards schizophrenic family members
- Can help to provide a supportive and accepting environment for the patient and enhance the success of their drug or cognitive treatment

WHAT IS A LIMITATION OF EXPLAINING SCHIZOPHRENIA IN TERMS OF EXPRESSED EMOTION?

- Biological factors are overlooked (environmental reductionism)
- Neglects the role of biological precursors or predisposition
- Genetic = diathesis-stress model

WHAT ARE SCHIZOPHRENOGENIC MOTHERS?

- Mothers that DON'T have SZ, but are assumed to CAUSE SZ
- Cold, rejecting and controlling

WHAT SYMPTOMS OF SCHIZOPHRENIA ARE SCHIZOPHRENOGENIC MOTHERS SEEN TO LEAD TO?

- Distrust
- Paranoid delusions
- Persecutory delusion

WHO THEORISED SCHIZOPHRENOGENIC MOTHERS AS AN EXPLANATION FOR SCHIZOPHRENIA?

Fromm-Reichmann

WHO CONDUCTED RESEARCH INTO SCHIZOPHRENOGENIC AS AN EXPLANATION FOR SCHIZOPHRENIA?

Fromm-Reichmann

WHAT IS THE ISSUE WITH THE SAME RESEARCHER THEORISING AND CONDUCTING RESEARCH INTO THEIR THEORY?

- Researcher bias
- May have only looked out for descriptions of Schizophrenogenic mothers of SZ patients
- Limits the internal validity

IS THERE SUPPORTING RESEARCH INTO THE SCHIZOPHRENOGENIC MOTHER THEORY FOR EXPLAINING SCHIZOPHRENIA?

- Read (2005)
- 69% of females and 59% of males had a history of physical / sexual abuse in their child

- shows that difficult family relationships increase the likelihood of the développement of SZ

WHAT IS THE DOUBLE-BIND THEORY AS AN EXPLANATION FOR SCHIZOPHRENIA?

Where the parent presents a child with a no-win situation which leaves the child receiving conflicting messages

WHAT IS AN EXAMPLE OF A DOUBLE-BIND EXPERIENCE?

Mother tells her son she loves him but freezes when the son initiates a hug

WHAT DOES THE CHILD RECEIVE IN A DOUBLE-BIND RELATIONSHIP WITH THEIR PARENTS?

- Verbal affection
- Non-verbal hostility

WHAT SYMPTOMS ARE ASSOCIATED WITH THE DOUBLE-BIND THEORY AS AN EXPLANATION FOR SCHIZOPHRENIA?

- Disorganised thinking
- Delusions

WHO CONDUCTED SUPPORTING RESEARCH INTO THE DOUBLE-BIND THEORY AS AN EXPLANATION FOR SCHIZOPHRENIA? WHAT DID HE FIND?

- Berger
- SZ participants reported more incidences of conditional love or parental rejection of love COMPARED TO a control group

WHO CONDUCTED CONTRADICTORY RESEARCH TO THE DOUBLE-BIND THEORY? WHAT DID HE FIND?

- Liem
- Found no difference at all in communication by SZ families COMPARED TO control group
- Suggests other factors may play a larger role in the development of SZ (such as biological factors)

WHAT COMMON EVALUATION POINT DO ALL THREE THEORIES HAVE?

- Socially sensitive
- Calls into question the quality of the parent-child relationship
- Offends families as it puts blame of child's schizophrenia on the parents

WHAT ARE GENERIC AO3 POINTS FOR FAMILY DYSFUNCTION AS AN EXPLANATION FOR SCHIZOPHRENIA?

- Direction of causality is unclear (did SZ lead to dysfunction or vice versa?)
- Environmental determinism (not all children brought up in dysfunctional families develop schizophrenia)

WHAT ARE THE THREE BRANCHES OF COGNITIVE EXPLANATIONS FOR SCHIZPHRENIA?

1. Dysfunctional thought processing
2. Metarepresentation dysfunction
3. Central control dysfunction

WHAT IS DYSFUNCTIONAL THINKING?

Disruption to normal thought processing

WHAT BRAIN STRUCTURES ARE ASSOCIATED WITH DYSFUNCTIONAL THINKING?

- Reduced thought processing in the ventral striatum
- Reduced information processing in the temporal and cingulate gyri

WHAT SYMPTOMS IS DYSFUNCTIONAL THOUGHT PROCESSING IN THE BRAIN ASSOCIATED WITH?

Hallucinations

OUTLINE R2S FOR DYSFUNCTIONAL THOUGHT PROCESSING AS A COGNITIVE EXPLANATION FOR SZ

- Stirling et. al
- Compared performance on stroop test between SZ patients and control group
- Stroop test involved participants naming the font-colour of colour-words
- Stirling found that SZ patients took twice as long as control group
- Suggests that cognitive processes are slower and impaired in schizophrenics
- Therefore supporting dysfunctional thought processing

OUTLINE A WEAKNESS OF DYSFUNCTIONAL THOUGHT PROCESSING

- Research has found neuroanatomical correlations with impaired thought processing and cognitions in schizophrenics
- Correlational research is criticised for unclear direction of causality
- We cannot be sure if impaired cognitions in ventral striatum and temporal and cingulate gyri lead to schizophrenia or vice versa
- Reduces our confidence in the validity of dysfunctional thought processing as a cognitive explanation for SZ

WHAT IS METAREPRESENTATION DYSFUNCTION?

- The inability to reflect on thoughts and behavior
- Makes it difficult to distinguish between our own thoughts and the thoughts of someone else

WHAT SYMPTOMS WOULD METAREPRESENTATION DYSFUNCTION EXPLAIN?

- Auditory hallucinations
- Delusions such as thought insertion

OUTLINE R2S METAREPRESENTATION DYSFUNCTION AS A COGNITIVE EXPLANATION FOR SZ

- Allen (2007)
- Presented SZ patients and control group with a pre-recorded speech
- Participants had to say whether content was from the speech or from themselves
- SZ participants found it harder to distinguish their thoughts from the information presented in the speech
- Supports metarepresentation dysfunction as a cognitive explanation for SZ.

WHAT IS CENTRAL CONTROL DYSFUNCTION?

Issues with the cognitive ability to suppress automatic responses while we perform deliberate actions

WHAT SYMPTOMS WOULD CENTRAL CONTROL DYSFUNCTION HELP EXPLAIN?

- Speech poverty
- Disorganised thinking

OUTLINE AN EXAMPLE OF CENTRAL CONTROL DYSFUNCTION

Schizophrenics experience derailment of thoughts because each word triggers associations and they cannot suppress automatic responses to these.

OUTLINE A WEAKNESS OF THE COGNITIVE EXPLANATIONS FOR SCHIZOPHRENIA

- Only explains the proximal origins of symptoms
- This is because cognitive explanations only explain what is happening currently, to produce symptoms
- Does not explain why the condition itself is present (distal explanations) such as genetics or family dysfunction
- Therefore cognitive explanations are limited and unclear as to why cognitive impairment occurs in schizophrenics
- Consequently lowers the validity of the cognitive explanations for SZ.

Family Dysfunction AO3 points

• RLA ~ family therapy reducing EE

• social sensitivity ~ parent blaming

• environmental reductionism ~ bio aspects

• R2S ~ Fromm Reichman / D ~ researcher bias

• R2S double bind ~ Berger / R2C ~ leim

Cognitive explanations AO3 points

• R2S stirling (2006) ~ Stroop tests

• only explains whats happening ~ doesn’t explain cause

• R2S metarepresentation dysfunction ~ Allen (played voice recording)

• unclear direction of causality ~ neuroanatomical correlation: impaired cognition due to SZ or caused by SZ